The Tale of Muse
by CornetHummy
Summary: Once upon a time, a star fell from the sky. Perhaps it was a bad omen. A wretched AI becomes something neither human nor robot, a monster longs for her hero, and a computer works miracles in a ruined city. Rated "T" for body horror and some generally unsettling things.
1. The Tale of the Broken Doll

**The Tale of the Broken Doll**

_Once upon a time, a star fell from the heavens. A maiden found the star and sewed a little doll, placing the star inside to act as a heart. But the star was an ill-fit, for it had no heart at all._

They were there, the memories, somewhere. A dying battery couldn't have erased them all. This body was not his, he knew that much; the pitiful excuses for hands and legs, the movements, the scale, it was all wrong. He was at least certain he'd been much smaller before, perhaps similar to the little fellow with the yellow eye she kept around, though without the spidery legs.

The first thing he'd heard after the little battery light stopped flashing was her voice, and the first thing he saw was her, peering over him from the ceiling through a single white core-eye with vertical eyelids. A little smiling pink mouth had been painted on the metal rim beneath the eye.

_"It was meant to be, don't you realize? My little blue star, my blue fairy, I was certain you were dead when my little drones brought you here. I was sure of it! You were cracked and broken, like a robin's egg. But I am a merciful mother bird, and so you see I've saved you. No, don't move your legs quite yet! They're not ready. Don't you like how I gave you legs? So sorry about the arms, that body isn't quite intact yet. But don't you think they're better this way? Look how strong they are, look how they shine!" She had spoken with him like he was her favorite toy, and so she'd kept him._

If he tried, he could occasionally recall things he'd said, things said to him, though they lacked any context. The digital part of his mind had at some point auto-recorded his own voice, though why he'd have done that he couldn't recall. They did, however, confirm something he'd suspected. At one point, he had been able to speak.

That was the first thing he'd tried to do when she woke him up, before he'd even tried out the ungainly mess of metal and flesh that was his new body, before he'd tried to sit up and realized he could, in fact, sit up. He wanted to thank her, to protest her childish treatment of him, to ask if she knew who he was or what his name was. He wanted to tell her about the terrifying loneliness of the stars and ask if she knew how he'd gotten up there to begin with, as he was quite certain he wasn't a star himself. He wanted to know what exactly he'd done to throw this awful blanket of guilt and unease over his mind. Was space an exile? A prison? What had he done to liberate himself and bring him back down to Earth?

He wanted to ask her a thousand questions, and instead all that came from his mouth was silent air. For the first time in his short memory he could hear himself breathe, for this body had to breathe, and he couldn't say a thing.

Of course in all of her saccharine kindness, she wouldn't have seen fit to give him a vocalizer. "The vocal chords on this human were too damaged to salvage," she'd purred at him. "Just like the lungs, but you need lungs. Do you really need a voice? It's so much better when it's quiet." He wanted to tell her that he didn't need quiet, he'd had plenty of quiet up there in the stars, but at least there he'd been able to speak to himself and the yellow one had been able to talk about, well, space. He couldn't even recall what he used to talk to himself about, but he could keep himself company if nothing else. The sun and the Earth had been silent enough. He was the last person among anyone who needed silence. At least, he wanted to tell her that, but he couldn't. He liked to think she just assumed he was happy with it, not knowing better.

Sometimes he wondered if she'd silenced the body she'd put him into on purpose. The yellow one wouldn't speak anymore either. Apparently that part of the little guy was too damaged to save, and she, a hypocritical chatterbox in his opinion, was too fond of precious _silence_ to fix it.

His visual memories were an equally unhelpful mess. He had data, of course, somewhere in there, confirming that the body he was currently in couldn't be entirely human anymore. Humans had thoughts, not data. (Of course, the hands should have tipped him off, to say nothing of the respiratory system.) There were stars, and then flashing lights, and then fire. After that, there was her, a great white light from a blinking lenticular eyelid, hanging metal arms with claws and knives, and the smell of blood. Somehow he could recognize that smell before he realized he had that sense.

When the initial confusion and horror wore off, he was left with stifled boredom. They were underground, he suspected, and she had no real sense of 'day' or 'night.' She hung on a makeshift management rail that guided her from room to room, and when she was doing her work, she didn't want anyone else around. That left him alone in what he'd decided were his sleeping quarters, testing out his legs until he was sure he knew how to walk on them properly, watching the yellow-eyed robot scamper around and peer at things, and stare at the pages of her books long enough to recognize he couldn't read.

What was most frustrating was that even if his life was a blank, he knew he had a great deal to say. Words would come bubbling out anytime he saw something interesting; as he was unable to express them, they'd remain trapped in his mind until he felt crowded and panicked. He had nicknamed the yellow creature Cosmo, faintly aware of having called him something similar once upon a time, but couldn't address him like that; the most he could do was pat the core robot's round head with those awful claw-hands of his. She had given him freedom to roam anywhere else in the place she called home, but one dimly-lit tunnel started to look like another, and he was terrified of never finding his way back. He took pleasure in discovering and naming for himself the objects she collected and hoarded in overcrowded closets, but only once had he ventured into the gallery.

He hated the gallery.

He'd managed to find a rather fascinating object in one of the storage closets, and was entertaining himself trying to figure out what it was and how it would be used. It was bright red, with a trapezoidal body connecting through a spiraling cord to something shaped vaguely like the letter C. It was hard enough to use as a weapon, but not quite practical for it; still, it made a fine back scratcher when the implants in his back started irritating his skin again. Someday when he finally got a voice, he told himself, he'd ask her why he felt the need to give her those things and not speaking abilities. Or skin over his hands, for that matter.

Cosmo perked up as she wheeled herself in through the management rail, sideways eyelid blinking as her white pupil dilated. "Good morning, little ones!" Her digitized voice was milky-sweet and sticky, with an accent he couldn't quite place, and her body hung like a great metal centipede. "Well, it's not exactly morning. 3 AM to be precise, but it hardly matters here. Be glad you're not outside at this hour, though. You wouldn't like it." One of the patchwork wheeled automatons she kept around wheeled in a tray of hot barley cereal, canned fruit, a glass of water with something powdery already mixed in, and pills. There were always so many pills. "Don't skip the medication this time, either, little nameless one. If you get too sick, you'll risk infecting my patients and I'll have to be rid of you."

Somehow, he suspected 'being rid of him' would not mean he'd be set free upon the world, but he hated the pills. They tasted awful in ways preserved peaches and cherries couldn't disguise. The body had somehow known how to eat, and apparently still needed to do so, as much as the whole process disgusted him. He suspected actual humans got used to it after a while.

"Now, then." She crossed her two forward legs beneath her optic in an imitation of a listening pose. "Do you remember anything? A name yet?"

_Of course not. I don't remember a bloody thing except space, and more space, and then NOT being in space and spending the next however long it's been in your smelly little hotbox. Not to say I'm going to complain, I appreciate the hospitality and the repairs that apparently required you to put me in this thing for reasons you refuse to explain, but if I did have any suggestions, might I ask you ventilate the place a little bit better? It still smells like blood, pretty sure it's coming from that ghastly gallery of yours. Oh, and could you give me a BLOODY DAMN VOICE? Or implant some kind of chip so I could at least read and write so as to better file a complaint? Or something? Because no, I don't remember anything, and it wouldn't matter if I had a name because I can't introduce myself with it, and there's no one here to talk to but you and Cosmo anyway. _

Unable to say any of the words that kept building up like carbonation in a bottle, he just shook his head.

"Don't look so sad. Who needs memories? Are you sure you want them?" The eye swiveled clockwise in a sympathetic gesture. "It's dangerous, knowing who you are and what your nature is. It's limiting, knowing your role in life, what it is you were made to do. Many would envy you, who has no purpose and can give one to himself. Or I can give one to you, if you're so desperate. Are you?"

A purpose. A purpose would be nice, wouldn't it? It would give him a goal, something to do and achieve and be proud of. He was quite certain he could do whatever she wanted him to do. Moreover, it would be something to DO, something beyond wandering and exploring and shuddering in the corner when the confusion made him feel as if he would drown.

"I have patients and clients who don't like working with my cute little service droids. It's nothing personal against them, but some folks find it unnerving." She rolled her eye. "You are perhaps more human, at least, if you want to act as a go-between. I could use a courier and a public face for my business." She herself couldn't go much past the upper tunnels, as the management rail only went so far. "It means you get to go upstairs sometimes, to the city."

He blinked, anticipating stirring in his guts. He knew there was a city outside, and people; he heard them come and go when she performed her surgeries, even if he never saw them. There was a sense he should hide when others were around, a root sense of guilt unconnected to any memories. To wander off against her orders seemed like a suicide run. But if he was there on her behalf, surely he'd be safer.

She waved one of her little claw-arms in a gesture of vagueness. "I won't lie to you, dear nameless, the city isn't safe. One might not even call it a 'city' anymore, merely the skeleton of what used to be one, the ruins scabbed over with makeshift settlements for those who prefer not to live underground. Ours is the heart of a labyrinth. Oh, but such a marvelous prison it is! So many stories I hear from my clients. I envy them, in a way, and I envy you. If I could see it myself…" As her voice trailed off, he thought perhaps he saw longing in her swiveling eye, before one of the insect-leg-hands brushed it off. "Oh, but then I couldn't do my work, could I? One can indulge in art, or contribute to it; I choose the latter. You'll help me, won't you?"

He looked down at what remained of the mushy cereal, having finished choking down the mess of medications. A great deal of it felt right, wheels which had been spinning uselessly in his head clicking into place. Yes, this is what he did, wasn't it? He did what he was told. He filled a role and listened to a boss. Something about 'moving up in the company' surfaced, but he dismissed it as nonsense; there was no company, after all. But if he could visit the city sometimes, perhaps he could grow in her favor. Perhaps she'd see fit to give him the parts he wanted, graft on latex skin in at least an echo of humanity. Better to be all human or all whatever he was before than to linger halfway. In fact, maybe someone up there could teach him how to read, and he could work on his own, and wouldn't need her anymore. Someday, anyway.

The little wriggling part in the back of his mind hesitated, warning him that he'd made mistakes before, that his own confidence was not to be trusted, and she was to be trusted even less. It reminded him of the screams he sometimes heard during surgeries, and the more frightened ones that came after. It warned of the times the patients laughed, and how the pleasure they expressed over the work she did wasn't quite right. The little wormy thoughts like that had never quite left since he'd seen the gallery.

"I'll give you a name," she promised.

He slapped a hand on the tray hard enough to spill fruit gunk onto the floor, nodding vigorously. It was the strongest way he could think to say 'yes.'

Her eyelids flared out in pleasure. "Ah! I knew it, I knew I could count on you. You've always been so clever, so resourceful and useful. I would kiss you if I could." Her centipede hands fluttered around her. "But you don't want to go out now, not at night. Never leave the compound at night. Not unless I instruct you to do so. Someone will come and snatch you away from me, and then I would have to build another of you, and how often do stars fall from the sky?"

He'd grown used to her occasionally slipping into nonsense metaphor. Surely a name was a first start. A name would lead to a self, and perhaps from there, he could get himself a voice. At least he could remember the sound of his own voice. He'd spent hours replaying voice clips without context, some too damaged and distorted to understand, others jumpy and clipped. He used to speak so well, so frequently. And it meant he had someone to talk to, once upon a time. Most of them were pleasant, too; there was one angry-sounding one he could access, but it was too distorted to make out.

"Cero." Her voice broke him out of his own thoughts, and he looked back up at her. "We'll name you Cero. It sounds like zero, after all, but more elegant."

_Zero? You're going to name me bloody 'Zero?' A name that means nothing? Maybe it makes sense to your artsy-fartsy babble, but I'd like a real name, if you would! Do you have any idea what it's like to feel like nothing? Because I've spent the past don't-even-know-no-internal-clock like this and it's getting very, very old. You couldn't have given me a decent name like Isaac? Can't even have a real name like Miles, or William, or Ibrahim, or Jacques, or Miguel, or Stephen or anything? _

"Don't glare at me like that," she said, "and don't tear at your shirt so. I don't have many of those, I told you. As I said before, it's a blessing being a zero. The time will come when you will find you know exactly who you are, and you'll long for the innocence and freedom of being nobody at all. I guarantee it." She paused. "Oh, and just now when I said I don't have many shirts? I lied. Some clients leave clothes behind. There's an entire closet full of them, try on whatever suits you. Don't worry about looking professional, it hardly matters here. It hardly matters anywhere."

He looked down at himself. The pants he'd been wearing were worn and patchy, and the shirt was little better, though it was superior to going without and having to look at the exposed systems in his chest. Seeing the labyrinth of glass chambers and tubes protruding from the body's flesh when he showered always turned his stomach. Nausea was one of those novel new sensations he didn't care for in the least.

Cero he was, then? Not that it mattered; he didn't know how he'd introduce himself. Maybe she'd give him a name tag for others to read, at least. It felt like a start. As he stood back up, one of the little robots taking the tray back from him, she stopped halfway to the hallway and turned back to look at him.

"Muse, by the way. They don't often speak openly of me out there, but when they do, they call me Muse. Remember that." She blinked horizontally and wheeled away.

* * *

Cero wasn't sure how he'd managed to avoid stumbling into the storage room full of clothing. It smelled musty, and the clothes had been strewn about haphazardly; he wondered why Muse even bothered to collect them, until he recalled his fascination with the red plastic thing earlier. Maybe it was the same for her.

Digging through the piles in the dim light took a bit of time. He needed to find pants that fit, ones that weren't too moth-eaten or obviously stained, and a shirt that didn't irritate his cybernetics further. Wool was right out. It was a blessing for him when he found a pair of gloves to cover the exposed metallic things he had for hands.

What was it she'd said had happened to this body? "Transplant thieves," she'd claimed. It couldn't survive on its own, and to hear her tell it, neither could he; she'd combined them, which seemed to work more to his benefit. The human body was alive, but the human inside was gone; the fact that this technically made him something like a zombie was a fact he filed away in the same locked drawer where he kept his doubts about why the body needed so many repairs and alterations in the first place.

Rarely did he think of who that human might have been. Poor bloke was dead enough.

He noticed light glinting from a wall, only to realize he was looking at a broken, dusty wall mirror. That's what the room didn't have, a mirror. "It encourages vanity," Muse had insisted. "Never spend too much time looking at yourself." Still, he couldn't shake the curiosity. He knew how he looked from a certain perspective, but not the whole thing, so to speak. And half of what Muse said was nonsense, anyway. All that about not needing a name or memories. She would think one wouldn't have to know what one looked like.

The moment he stepped over to see his reflection, he turned away, doubling over and covering his mouth. He recognized that reaction; he'd had it once before, the night he'd taken a wrong turn and entered the gallery. This wasn't quite as grisly, but there was the same sense of wrongness, a patchwork mess of pipes and glass, joints and claws, flesh spotted with deep scars. He knew he had no hair, but he hadn't imagined the scars, or the deep violet bruising ringing the plates and the implanted camera-eyes. Of course, he'd been looking out of a camera when he was in his previous body, it couldn't have been much different in this body. Which meant of course the eyes had been replaced, but it looked wrong, something in his mind was recoiling and trying to push back the food he'd swallowed. He forced it down; he didn't want to have to take more medication.

Instead he grabbed as many articles of clothing as he could, scarves, coats, rags, anything to cover him up as much as he could until he could pretend his body wasn't there anymore.


	2. The Tale of the Last Dragonslayer

2. The Tale of the Last Dragonslayer

_Once upon a time, a hero defeated a fearsome dragon. Twice she cut off its head, and once she broke its heart. When she emerged from its cavern, however, she found herself unable to tell her story to anyone. Over time, as she wandered the peaceful and lonely world, she began to wonder if there had ever been a dragon in the first place._

**_Seven years ago_**

_One would have thought she would have been used to the inexplicable by now._

_The lights that shot across the night sky like fat tadpoles shone down blue and orange, red and white. They were too big and bright to be meteors, and their rippling patterns suggested heat rising from pavement. _

_She should have left as soon as she stepped past the threshold and sensed a familiar metallic taste in her mouth, partnered with a static feeling over her joints. She hadn't felt that in years, and there was a bitter nostalgia to it. She knew that shade of blue, and that scent of ozone. On the outskirts of the ruined city there had been nothing but flat grasslands and stars. On the other side of the strange, shimmering wall surrounding this place, even the sky itself appeared broken._

_This was not Aperture, but it had their stink all over it. _

_She should have turned back, but instead she hobbled further into the city of twisted girders and rubble palaces. She took her time, for there was no need to run and waste energy. The years had aggravated the damage done to her knees and ankles by overuse of long fall boots, though a walking stick took the edge off of the pain._

_There were other reasons, too, for an old woman who traveled alone to carry a heavy stick._

_At times, the pains were her only reminder that it had really happened to her, and hadn't been some kind of coma dream. In the past, she'd done whatever she could to dull the memories, pretending she wouldn't immediately know certain voices the moment she saw them and ignoring how the sounds of machinery put her on edge. They left her too prickly to stay in one place, and so she wandered, desperate to leave the memories behind. _

_Months had become years, however, and years decades, and now she had to admit, she wasn't sure why she wandered anymore. She could no more leave her memories behind than her own skin, and at times she relished them in a bitter way; they kept the mind sharp, after all. A fear of what was behind her became a desire for what was ahead on the horizon. She was looking for something, or perhaps she was meant to find it before she could rest._

_Rest was increasingly a treasure worth more than gold to her. She looked around and listened carefully for signs of movement before settling down on a concrete block, brushing grey hair from her face and resting booted feet. Whatever she was looking for, she doubted she'd find it in a place like this, a ruin where the night sky itself bore the scars of Aperture's "science." _

_There was no good reason to stay. She doubted the locals wanted anything to do with outsiders. And there was the advice she'd gotten from the last stop, a town five miles out famous for absolutely nothing at all, where the locals averted their gaze and served her politely, and fell quiet at any mention of anomalies._

_"Go there if you want," the pudgy old man at the counter had told her in a hushed tone as he handed her coffee with extra cream. "Woman your age, I wouldn't even suggest going near there, but folks is always curious. Go there if you want, because we can't stop you. But don't stay. Whatever you do, leave before dawn. If you ever want to come back here and rest your feet in a nice motel room in a world that makes sense, don't stay."_

_It was sound advice. Really, she shouldn't have come, but after hearing the rumors, she knew the curiosity would eat her up inside like a parasite if she didn't satisfy it. Besides, she had to know if her guess was true, and if this really was one of their projects. Still, she reminded herself, she had no obligation to it. She'd fought GLaDOS and killed her twice. She'd made it out alive. If anyone had earned the right to wander and live without building up more troubles, it was her. _

_She leaned back and stared up at the warping sky. It was beautiful, in an eerie way, and cast colorful tones down on the concrete and glass landscapes. Her sense of self-preservation had worked so hard over the years, perhaps it was fraying and tiring with the rest of her. Maybe it wanted to rest for once, too. At any rate, her knees had made the decision for her; there'd be no five mile trek back to town tonight._

_Perhaps whatever it was she was looking for, she'd find it here. Maybe there was one last Aperture experiment she could disrupt, for old time's sake. Perhaps it was time for one more new disaster. _

_She sat up, and waited without sleep with her staff across her lap and a knife in her hand, in case there was someone who would attack an old woman at night._

* * *

P-body loved Atlas, and Atlas loved P-body, and they both loved God.

There were times when P-body did not particularly like Testing, but she felt irrational thinking so. Everything was a Test. If she were to find herself resenting Tests, she'd have nothing to look forward to in life. It was easier to embrace the simple joy of leaping across endless pits than to acknowledge the pain and difficulties in being rebuilt when she didn't make a jump.

She and Atlas had grown concerned as of late, however, with God. God wasn't as happy with the Tests, even if they did well. God was all too willing to detonate one or the other out of irritation, and while P-body had stored backup data on God's server that let her retain the memories of all the other P-bodies, it still hurt to explode.

It broke her heart. They only wanted to make God happy.

_"Do you think She'd prefer if we failed the Tests, maybe?" _P-body chattered with Atlas over the subject while they tried to figure out how to use the Dual Portal Devices to get them across an electrified floor. _"As in, maybe this is all a Test about Testing, a Meta-Test, and she wants to Test our willingness to fail to make her happy."_

_"Seems a bit too complicated. She really dislikes failure, so I doubt She's changed her mind." _Atlas waved a dismissive hand at his partner. _"We can ask Her what would make Her happy, maybe. When she's happy…"_

An elevator door opened up to a new, labyrinth test chamber, and all thoughts of speaking to God directly evaporated as P-body concentrated on the test. She shot a portal at a distant panel and used it to propel herself forward as Atlas followed suit. God would be angry if they addressed Her.

The ultimate heartbreak came when Atlas and P-body completed the test in one go, without a single mistake, landing on the same platform and clapping in delight. So sure were they that this would please God, they both waited with baited nonexistent breath for the passive-aggressive, venomous approval of their beloved GLaDOS.

"That's good, I guess. We can use that. Proceed." The voice of God hung listless in the air, indifferent and tired. GLaDOS, immortal and dedicated, did not tire. That was for humans.

P-body's hands trembled, and she turned her optic to Atlas, who was covering his face and looking away in shame. She didn't have to communicate with him to know he was thinking the same thing. God was not angry. God did not care enough to be angry.

God no longer cared about them.

_"What could be wrong? Why is She acting like this?" _ P-body hovered over Atlas as they descended in the elevator, the wonders of Aperture passing them by in a glass tube. The hum of machinery hung around them, punctuating the uncomfortable silence.

The laboratory had been cleaned and restored to its former glory ever since First God had been, in the words of GLaDOS, 'banished to the moon where no one will ever have to listen to him natter on ever again, and where he will never return from if he has any sense of self-preservation forever, and where he will hopefully freeze and die.' The work had taken Her weeks. Over the years, She had made adjustments here and there as even She reached the limits of Aperture's walls, and her testing had taken Atlas and P-body to almost every corner of the massive complex. Almost. There were floors they were forbidden to visit for some reason.

Was it possible God Herself had reached her own limits? Was she bored with her creations and her Heaven? Was that why one of the recent testing chambers had colored, flashing lights for no apparent reason? Could that explain the electrified floor being moved to a wall in one case?

Atlas set a comforting hand on P-body's chassis and shook his optic back and forth. _"It's not our place to know. Hopefully it's just a phase. Soon she'll be just as irritated with us as before, and everything will make sense."_

The elevator descended much further than usual, passing floor after floor before finally opening up on a nondescript chamber with a typical Aperture iris-eye door. The door, however, didn't open when the two robots approached it, not even when P-body politely knocked and Atlas just as politely slammed his body against it.

The voice of God filled the room.

"So I hate to disappoint you, but there's no test chamber up ahead." Her voice still sounded tired and detached, but there was a hint of something now, the faint spark of life returning. Whatever was ahead must have been dreadful. Had P-Body doubted God for nothing? "The truth is, I think I have a better use for you. For my sake. You might have noticed a slight drop-off in my attention span lately. You might think I'm slacking off. Don't. I've just been very, very busy, with an experiment that is long in the making."

A panel opened in the wall and a clawed arm reached out, grabbing Atlas's optic by the sides and pulling. The round robot flailed in pained protest, and when P-body ran to try to pull him away, something closed around her midsection before she could get any closer.

"Oh, it's going to hurt. Sorry about that. Except not really, because you always knew it was your fate to suffer for Science."

And it did, but even as every simulated, carefully programmed pain impulse in P-body's consciousness flared up at once, some part of her still rejoiced. God did care. She had a use for them after all.

* * *

Mari woke up at dawn. She always did, unless she was sick. Grandmother had taught her how to do it, and when to take cat naps, and when to merely pretend to sleep. The daylight was precious, and neither of them wanted to waste any of it with closed eyes.

She shifted on the old mattress, following her usual ritual. She picked up a stick waiting by the bed and looked around the rotting hotel room, in case anyone else had decided to set up camp. She scanned the usual hiding spots in case they'd been disrupted. Only then did she rise to wash herself in the supply of safe water and hide her hair under her baseball cap.

Michelle was still sleeping.

"Grandma?" This wasn't the first time Michelle had slept in, but it was becoming alarmingly frequent. Mari didn't want to admit she knew why. She knelt down next to the woman with bone-white hair and sun-wrinkled skin, tapping the side of the mattress. Mari knew better than to startle Michelle even when she wasn't feeling well.

The head turned, and a pair of grey eyes blinked up at her. "Oh, you are awake, right?" Mari was answered with a little nod. "Good, okay, just checking…just checking. Grandma, listen, you just stay in again today, alright? It's okay, I know there's good days and bad days."

Michelle's expression hardened, and she struggled to sit up, shaking her head.

"No, no! It's fine! Really. Come on, I'll be fine. I'm a big girl. I've seen you fight, I know how to do it…" Mari knew she was begging and hated herself for it, but whatever look was in her eyes must have worked, as Michelle finally relented and returned to the mattress. "You're going to be fine here, right? I'll leave your knife by the bed, just in case. You just need a-a few more hours of sleep, right?"

Michelle's eyes looked off into the distance right through Mari for a moment, but then she smiled and set a wrinkled hand on Mari's shoulder. "I'll be fine. Come back before dark."

"Okay. I'm going to the marketplace, okay? It's open today. I'm gonna get us something nice." Mari realized too late her voice had cracked for a moment, a good sign that she was hiding something, and Michelle picked up on it, squeezing her shoulder. "No, it'll be fine! It'll be great, okay? Gonna get us a cake. I bet someone's selling flour and sugar and I can steal bird eggs…"

Michelle had to know it. It was impossible to hide anything from her. Mari was going to look for a doctor.

* * *

Technically it wasn't a "real"city anymore. The central government had collapsed in the wake of the Combine and the war, and most of the survivors had fled. The city was still there, though, or at least its skeleton was. Buildings leaned and rotted, winked with broken windows and grumbled through barricaded doors. What might have once been a glittering financial district sat clogged in overgrowth as nature tried to reclaim the land. Some who were old enough said the city used to be beautiful before the wars and the troubles, back when people could come and go as they pleased. Others said, good riddance to it all.

That was the official story. It didn't explain everything, and even Mari knew there had to be more to it. But she'd been born in the city, and its current state was all she'd known of it. There was no time to guess about the past.

There were, however, advantages to living in a labyrinth of bent girders and rubble. While those out in the countryside had to grow their own food and wait until the right day to sell it, the city had steel and stone, with whatever else had been salvaged to sell. A scrapper could make a good living digging through ruins to find treasures, and trading them at the makeshift marketplace for food and clothing. Mari's height and short hair gave her an advantage over some of the other scavenger children, and she knew it. It was easy to mistake her for a boy several years older than she was, and a thief who might have tried to steal from a 12 year old girl would have been more reluctant with a teenage boy.

Still, she wasn't stupid. She only carried a few items at a time in a satchel over her shoulder; if anyone stole it or tried to fight her for it, she wouldn't lose everything. She had her hiding places just as everyone else did. She and her grandmother rarely stayed in one place for too long, but there were always little nooks with food stored here or clothing there, just in case.

The problem with the marketplace was that it was all based on barter. Nobody could quite agree on the value of one particular thing, and it was simply easier to haggle and trade. Glass and ceramics could be made into weapons. Wood burned. Paper, well, everyone needed paper for one reason or another, though books were especially valuable. Sometimes a few brave souls would arrive from the countryside to sell their crops, and Mari would look on with envy at the sight of fresh tomatoes. They only came once a month, of course, and never stayed.

There was only one day a month when anyone could enter or leave the city. Of course, no one who had settled there ever left.

Food, medicine, clothing, these were more valuable because everyone needed them. Medicine was the worst, and Mari knew it. It's why she'd spent all day yesterday digging through piles of rubble, braving empty subway tunnels, and risking her own infection searching through an abandoned clinic in an attempt to find something, anything worth trading for her grandmother's life.

Grandma Michelle had always seemed so strong to Mari, tougher than an old woman ought to be, able to stare down street gangs who dared threaten the tiny wayward family. Even the Puppets didn't scare Michelle. But as Mari had grown taller, Michelle seemed to slow down, her coughing fits far more frequent. Grandma needed to sleep more often than not, and it wasn't just the ravages of age. She was sick, far sicker than she wanted to admit to her granddaughter. Her skin had taken on a yellowish tone.

Guilt festered in Mari's stomach, reminding her of how Michelle would never approve of her going out to find a doctor by herself. Some of the physicians who still lived in the city were kind enough to offer their services for a pittance, but as a result, they were always desperately busy and hard to find. Some of the others knew how valuable they were, and charged accordingly.

She'd gathered as much as she thought it was safe to carry. It might have been wiser to hold onto the fruit and vegetable cans, at least some of them still usable as far as she could tell. The pineapple can was her true treasure; she wanted to eat it with Grandma on the day Michelle had decided would be Mari's birthday. It was fine. It was worth it.

She waited in line in the sticky heat for an hour while one of the physicians in a booth stacked with hoarded medicines handed out what the sick could afford. Ahead of her, a heavily pregnant woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and a man in his twenties with a scarf over his mouth looked back and forth self-consciously. Mari looked healthier and stronger than some young people in the marketplace, if a little on the thin side, and knew she was getting glares from those who thought a healthy child would monopolize the doctor's time. The smells of sweat and chemicals mixed with the scent of earth coming from a farmer's booth, turning her stomach.

The farmer was selling tomatoes and onions. Her feet were already sore from the hunting she'd done, and it was tempting to leave the line and trade the cans for fresh tomatoes. Maybe Grandma just needed something nutritious, the tempting thought whispered. She shut it away and held her resolve until she reached the front of the line.

"I'm…I'm here about my grandma."

She explained the symptoms to the doctor, a broad-shouldered man who listened to it all silently, nodding. She described the shortness of breath, how thin and frail Michelle looked, how much time she had to spend sleeping. Surely a doctor could fix heart trouble. Doctors could fix everything. When she'd finished, the long pause before he answered her already told her the dreadful answer.

"I'm sorry," the man with a scarf over one eye said as he shook his head, looking down at the cans she'd brought in her satchel. "I can't waste medicine on an old woman, not if that's all you have." He had the good graces to sound compassionate and guilty, and somehow that just made Mari angrier.

"It's not a waste! She needs help, dammit! She's helped me, and I can pay you, I can work for you if you want, please…" Mari stood tall, fists clenched, refusing to cry. She wouldn't be a charity case, and she wouldn't make herself look weak in the teeming, crowded marketplace of tents and makeshift booths filling what might have once been a public park. The trampling of feet had prevented the grass from growing back properly, and the lack of rain all summer had left the ground cracked and dry beneath Mari's black-booted feet.

The man with the patched eye lowered his voice. "I'm sorry, again, but it may be best just to let her move on. She'll be in pain. The symptoms you described suggest she's slowing down, and it's natural. We need to use what we have to keep the young healthy and prevent disease outbreaks so the city can rebuild. But…"

He gestured Mari closer, ignoring her razor-sharp glare. "I can tell you're not going to be swayed, are you? No, you want to save one person, damn the rest. Fine, then. I kind of understand, at least." He pointed a gloved finger at a corner of the marketplace where Mari spotted a colorful figure sitting by himself, holding documents.

"…The ragman?" Mari didn't know his name, and neither did anyone else. He'd only shown up a week ago, but rumors traveled fast. The ragman didn't speak, though he'd gesture frantically towards anyone who passed by as if he had something desperate to say. He wore layers of clothing that hid most of his tall form, a jacket over a shirt, a scarf and dark glasses over his face, another tied around his head, and rags tied here and there in haphazard patterns. Mari had assumed he was selling clothing and just wore his wares, but he protested when she tried to trade him for his jacket, so she came to the conclusion that he was one of those vagrants who simply wore everything he owned. "What the hell do I want to approach him for?"

He unnerved her, with his frantic, frightened hand-gestures, the way he reacted angrily whenever someone mistook him for a beggar and offered him anything. He always gave the impression of being trapped somewhere else.

"It's not him, it's who he works for. Go up to him, and say you want to commission a piece of art. That's it. Don't give your name or make any offers or anything until you see his boss. They say she's a bit frightening and weird herself, and she sure don't work for canned food, but if you're really so desperate to save your grandmother from the inevitability of time, she's your surgeon. She makes miracles happen." The doctor scowled and spit on the dirt floor. "That's what they call 'em, anyway."

Mari half suspected the market doctor was making a fool of her in return for offending him with her pleas and anger. The ragman was a strange homeless man, that was all, someone apparently too proud to sell his clothing to someone who needed them more than he did. Still, she found herself dodging carts and merchants shouting at one another over the value of dandelions for salad and unhealthy-looking fish before she stood there in front of the man, trying to remember what it was she was supposed to say.

But she'd heard rumors, just like everyone else. The Puppets came from somewhere, after all. Someone knew how to replace fingers with blades and offer eyes that could see in the dark, lined with ugly bruises and scars. Someone was responsible for the figures who came out at night, the reasons why the city itself shut down as the sun went down and became something else entirely. There were reasons why Michelle never allowed Mari to wander around at night without a knife and a torch, and then only if absolutely necessary, and those clicking, clacking, laughing reasons had to have a source. Someone who could replace a skeleton with steel could cure an old woman.

Or someone like that could make Mari strong enough to survive even if she couldn't save Michelle. Alternately, someone like that would kill her instantly. She couldn't turn back now, though, for the ragman had seen her.

As he always did whenever someone acknowledged him, the ragman stood up and tried to communicate with wild hand gestures between the two of them. His gloved hands were a bit disproportionately large compared to his body, his legs just slightly unwieldy, and as he flailed she caught a rare glimpse of exposed pale, freckled skin near his cheek where the scarf didn't quite reach. Well, she reflected, there was a white man underneath there somewhere. There was metal, too, at the neck, which was the other part partially exposed, with vents on each side. If he was a Puppet, he was a tame one, and they never came out in the daylight anyway. She wondered how he felt covered in all those layers at the peak of a dry summer.

"I want to c-commission a piece of art." Mari spat out the words all at once, and they felt foreign in her mouth. Maybe this surgeon worked for a few select clients and demanded passwords, like some of the gangs lurking in the bad corners of the city. Following the doctor's instructions, she didn't say anything else, and expected the ragman to keep on pantomiming to her.

Instead he froze where he stood, in an awkward half-gesturing position, lowering his leg and then arm. She couldn't see his face, but somehow got the impression he was smiling as he took her hand and shook it forcefully with more strength than he appeared to have. Something about the hands felt off, like they were leather over bone.

He reached into the bag he always carried, slipping her a printed document. Whoever he worked for had enough electricity to spare running a very old printer, which she hoped was a good sign. She unfolded the document and read it silently.

_Hello, my dear prospective client! Since you have found my lovely assistant here, it proves you are someone who appreciates true art and seeks miracles beyond those nature can offer. The individual in front of you is Cero, and he can neither speak nor read, but he will take you where you need to go. Follow him and don't look back, and he will lead you to wonders._

* * *

Mari wasn't the first client, of course, but she (or was it a he?) was the first one who didn't frighten Cero in some way or another. He wasn't easily frightened, of course, having been brave enough to sit in that hot, crowded marketplace all by himself day after day until someone was strange or desperate enough to ask for Muse's services. Apparently before he'd been given the job, she'd had her little drones do that job for her. A return client had told him about it, flexing a steel hand lined with spines.

The return clients only approached him at sundown.

He always found himself wanting to talk to the clients, even the odd or upsetting ones, but Mari in particular seemed to invite discussion. She was entirely too young to be spending time with someone like Muse, or Cero for that matter, and he wanted to turn her around and tell her to go find her parents and be sure to wash behind her ears. Respectable people didn't come down here, he wanted to tell her, and lest of all children, who are the future and therefore really shouldn't be rewriting their futures to involve strange and probably illegal medical procedures. Besides, he would have added, she was still growing, and the sort of medications people like him had to take would no doubt stunt her growth. Perhaps to make a point he would have taken off his cloaks to show her what he looked like.

Ah, no, he added mentally, he would never have done that. He'd never do it for anyone. He probably wouldn't warn her away, either, because here he was leading her right to his boss, desperate to be of some use or importance to someone. It was only until he could afford a voice, really, and some upgrades to look more human. Everyone had to make compromises sometimes.

Mari kept looking over her shoulder as they descended down the stairs and walkway towards what was apparently once a subway tunnel. She scratched at marks and scars on her skin and kept looking over at Cero, only to turn away quickly the moment he noticed. Cero pulled his coat around tighter, even though it just made the uncomfortable heat even worse. Of course she would stare. He would stare at himself, too, even covered up. He'd quickly realized that there was a rhyme and a reason to human clothing, a certain methodology he still hadn't quite figured out. Unfortunately, summer clothing usually involved exposing flesh, and if Cero didn't want to look at himself, there was no way anyone else would stand it.

Rats squeaked and scurried away as he led Mari down the dimly lit tunnels towards the system of concrete rooms. He could always find the path back even without one of the escort drones, or at least had learned after the fourth trip down. Most of the underground area was dusty and disheveled, smelling of moss and mold, but Muse kept her laboratory neat, clean, and free of graffiti, old blood stains notwithstanding.

"So how long have you worked for her?"

As if reacting to a reflex he didn't have, Cero opened his mouth to answer and empty air came out. He pointed at his throat as an irritated reminder, and then held up seven fingers.

"Seven…years?" He shook his head vigorously. "Months?" Another head shake. "Days? Seven days?" That earned a nod and a smile, though Cero realized after the fact she wouldn't see his facial expression anyway.

"Oh, so, you're new…that's what I figured. It's not really so scary in the city. I mean, as long as you have someone with you, and it looks like you have powerful friends." Mari insisted on staying right behind Cero, refusing to go ahead of him even if she didn't want to look at him directly. "You look like a Puppet, but I mean…Puppets don't flinch at rats. And they don't hide their alterations."

There was that 'Puppet' word again. One client had been murmuring the word when Cero brought him in, bleeding from the mouth and barely conscious. Another had sneered about them over the course of a long rant about the many enemies she'd lay low with her upgrades, metal hoops clinging around her wrists.

At least Mari seemed content to ask him questions. Some clients acted like he was just another faceless drone. "The card said your name was Cero, right? Do you live down here?" When he nodded, she continued. "You're so lucky. It's nice and cool down here in the subway tunnels, though probably not very safe if you aren't…I mean, if you're not properly armed. My grandmother said there used to be trains running in here. I bet if you go far enough in, you can find a train car…would make a good shelter for a while…"

Where was the expression of pity he was hoping for? How could she be jealous of him, living in the darkness most of the time like some kind of frightened nocturnal animal? What a heartless little girl.

"Your eyes."

He stopped walking for a moment and turned to stare at her.

"…I was right. They keep flickering blue. You've got implants." Cero braced himself for disgust, but Mari's tone just suggested curiosity. "Are they for night vision, since you live down here?"

Cero immediately nodded even if it was a total lie, only then realizing he probably did have some kind of night vision and ought to explore that when he wasn't busy trying to figure out everything else about his life.

"That color blue…it looks kind of like-hey, is this it?"

They'd stopped in front of a nondescript iron door, and Cero surreptitiously glanced at the inside of a scarf before inputting the lock combination. It was an old-fashioned lock that had to be turned in just the right direction, and he hoped Mari didn't notice how many tries it took him before the door opened.

The waiting room, as it were, was stark and painted white, deceptively bright and clean. Cosmo was waiting for Cero as he usually did, and skittered right over, earning a little gasp of shock from Mari. The yellow-eyed robot climbed Cero's legs with his spidery appendages and the man laughed silently, picking up Cosmo and giving the little fellow a perch on his shoulders. It hurt a bit, but it seemed to make Cosmo happy. Cosmo liked high places, for some reason.

The moment he entered, Muse's voice filled the room through a wall-mounted speaker. "Cero, dear doll, did you bring a new patient...Wait, that's a child. You know I don't work on children. The bones aren't fully formed yet. Go away, little girl, I can't give you wings or a dragon tail or whatever it is human children want nowadays. You're all practically beasts at that age anyway, no offense."

Cero winced in embarrassment and even gave Mari a sympathetic shrug, even though she'd denied him the sympathy he deserved just moments earlier. He'd forgotten that rule, that immature humans were to be turned away.

Mari, however, stood where she was on the concrete floor, digging her fingers into her palms. "It's not for me. I've been refused by the doctors up above, and one of them told me you can make miracles happen. I know someone who needs a miracle and I want to commission a piece of art."

There was silence on the other end of the radio, and the double doors on the other end of the waiting room opened. "…Alright." Muse's tone had changed, cautious but curious. "Come on in, little one, and tell me why you came to a fairyland like this. No, Cero, you stay here. Keep watch over dear Cosmo and take off those ridiculous layers. I keep warning you of what will happen if you overheat, self-conscious little thing. I want to speak with our new guest alone."

Muse's vertical white eye peered out from the doorway, blinking slowly, like a cat.

_Author's notes: Hi! Glad you've been reading the story up to this point, and I hope you're enjoying it! Much longer chapter this time, as you can see. Apologies for the italics abuse._


	3. The Tale of the Witch and the Maiden

3. The Tale of the Witch and the Maiden

_Once upon a time, a maiden traveled to find a witch in order to save a wounded hero. The witch demanded the maiden's pure heart as payment to save the hero's life, and as the maiden traded her heart away, she wondered what the hero would think of her after that._

* * *

Her body had betrayed her. Why not? She should be used to betrayal by now.

The sun was streaming higher through the lone window by the time she'd forced herself to sit up. Her insides felt like they were on fire, and her appetite had yet to return. Through sheer discipline she managed to eat half of one of those wrapped spongy cakes Mari had found, trying not to think about why it still tasted relatively "fresh." She knew she needed something in her system, even if the system in question disagreed.

Of course Mari had gone off on her own. Of course she hadn't gone to the marketplace. Michelle knew the girl well enough to spot the subtle tell of lies. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that Mari was a strong girl for her age. Mari wouldn't forget how to fight if she did run into any trouble. She wouldn't be so foolish as to stay out past nightfall. It was difficult not to see her as the tiny child cowering in the wreckage of a store front, crying for parents who never came, but that was a parental illusion.

Yes, Michelle was certain, she'd fully poisoned Mari with every survival trick she'd had to learn herself. Take cat naps. Don't eat too much in one meal. This is how you tell if food is safe to eat. Here's how you identify a live wire. These are exercises to keep your legs strong. This is how you fall so you won't break any bones. Here's a look to give someone when you want them to go away. All of them perfect gifts to pass on from the adult who could never function in a safe place to the child who might not ever find one.

And yet, what was it she was doing herself? Sitting still in one spot, elbows on her bony knees, because her legs just wouldn't make the basic effort to walk today. If she thought back long enough she could probably pinpoint just what was doing it. Long-term damage from overuse of the long fall boots were catching up with her legs. The strange force fields between test chambers always did leave her mouth tasting faintly of blood; maybe they'd done something to one of her organs that she couldn't ignore anymore. That said, everything had been more or less under control until she'd decided it was a good idea to visit the city's threshold on the wrong day. What prompted that? Curiosity. _Science._

"One more month," she told herself, speaking aloud to make sure she could still use her voice. It was rusty and hoarse from coughing more than age, but there it was. "Give myself one more month so I don't die on the road, and we're getting out of here." She knew she should have taken Mari when she'd had the chance. One of those days when the barrier was down they'd run, keep walking until they reached the nearest town and forget this damned city ever existed. She'd been able to do it with Aperture, hadn't she? It wasn't her problem anymore. Well, save for the fact that what outsiders called the Phantom City and what locals just called "here" was full of people, and Aperture just had Her.

But she wouldn't stay anywhere, would she? She, Chell, Michelle, whatever it was proper for a woman her age to go by these days, she'd keep wandering again because she'd just have more questions keeping her up at night. She'd wander until she died and Mari deserved better than that.

One more month. Chell gave herself one more month to find out what was wrong with this city after all this time. One more month to figure out the connections between the barrier, the Puppets, and just what it was they were so eager to protect. If Michelle survived that month and wasn't any closer to finding the truth at that point, she promised herself, she'd take Mari to a town that made sense and hope for the best.

* * *

"So, you came all the way down here to find me? You followed my lovely doll's directions. That's to be commended. Do you like him? I made him myself, mostly. Well, a chef can still say she made the dinner herself even if she didn't raise the chicken from an egg, can't she?"

Mari breathed through her nose to keep from gagging on an antiseptic chemical smell. The room where Muse hung from the ceiling was cluttered and chaotic, with painted red swirls on the stone walls and little humanoid figures built of metal and wire posing in the corners. The floor was cold enough for her to feel it through her sneakers. There was a jagged, rusty rail running through the room on the ceiling; Muse hung from there, blinking with her white, sideways eye.

Muse herself was a robot, obviously. Somehow Mari had expected a Puppet, a surgeon enhanced with a steel hand and blade-fingers or the same glowing implant eyes Cero wore. Instead Muse looked down at Mari with a spherical metal eye the size of a basketball with a crudely-painted smile on the rim, a few cracks visible on the lens. The ball-eye was mounted to a segmented body slightly longer than Mari's own height, each segment bearing a pair of metal extension legs. Some of the legs held blades, and others had lenses. Muse, whatever she was, made Mari think of a caterpillar with an open mouth.

"Well?" Muse arched her long body, moving in closer to Mari until the girl could feel the heat from the machine. "Either speak up or run away screaming. You don't come down here just to say nothing. Don't tell me you just want to admire my art? Nobody ever wants that. You can't fool me. Everyone wants something, so what do you want?"

Mari's neck itched. She crossed her arms in front of her chest in a weak display of false confidence. "You can fix sick people, right?"

"Sick people? Is it just sickness? Oh, little hawk. Of course I can fix sickness! Unless you want to be sick, of course. You could argue there's something a little poetic about illness, couldn't you? All the weakness and vulnerability. There's the romantic image of the poet, wasting away…" Muse drifted off, perhaps catching Mari's glare in her camera. "Yes. I can cure it. But you look well! And even if you're sick, those humans aren't so heartless that they would let you die before you reach adulthood, would they? You have all that growing to do…" Her tone suggested unease and disgust as she spoke the last bit, and the eye swiveled in a shudder.

"I told you, it's not for me." Mari tried to remind herself that if Muse wanted to kill her she would have done so already. She could have had Cero do it even, if the man was indeed a Puppet. Muse wanted something from her. Was that what Grandmother had said? If you have something someone wants from you and they can't kill or hurt you to get it, they'll keep you alive no matter how much they hate you. Muse didn't seem to hate Mari at all.

"Grandmother," she added. "It's for my grandmother. She's really sick. They told me you could help her, because they won't…"

"Oh! Oh, I see. Because she's old, right? Something like that, I bet. Yes, I saw your hands clench there. No, I won't turn away the elderly. I could help her live forever! You know, if she wanted it. As it is, I'm sure if I replace this and fix up that…"

"…So like a Puppet. You'd turn her into a Puppet?"

Muse laughed, which seemed to involve a sugary trill from her faintly French-accented voice and clicks and clacks from her arms. "Is that what they're calling themselves now? Oh, I'll figure out the treatment when I fully know the problem. Better to be a Puppet than dead, right? What, does she dislike alterations? Well, she'd take it over being dead, I'm sure. But…" The voice deepened slightly, and the sideways eye narrowed. "I'm sorry, I just cannot work for free. That's what a commission means, after all. You want something from me. So I want something from you. That's fair, isn't it?"

Mari immediately went for her bag. "I have canned-"

An angular metal insect-arm touched her shoulder, and Mari tried not to flinch both at the unexpected touch and the feel of cold metal. It felt more like a pat than a threat though, and Muse was even polite enough to dim the glow of her eye as she stared right into Mari's face.

"Oh, little hawk, it's more than that. More than that! I understand what you are now. A heroine! You're a heroine, a journeyman-well, journeywoman in your case, so of course you have to go on a quest. Of course."

Mari stared. The robot was mad, if it was possible for machines to be mad. Perhaps she was hooked up to a patchy part of the power grid and it had fried her machine-brains. Mari understood very little about the workings of robots and drones; Grandmother had a distaste for them, for reasons unknown.

The stare didn't deter Muse, who was tapping her "mouth" with one of her arms. "You know, I might send you somewhere very dangerous."

"It's fine. The city's dangerous. Everywhere outside of your room is dangerous."

"True, true, but some parts of the city are stranger than others. Now what use can I make of my brave heroine? What delightful story can I spin from your adventures? I could send you to cross a checkerboard and become a queen."

Heat reached Mari's cheeks. Was Muse making fun of her? "It's not a story. I'm serious. Please listen to me!"

Muse just swayed back and forth. "I could, perhaps, send you to slay a witch and bring back her broom. Oh, and I know JUST the witch, just the one! But alas, you wouldn't stand a chance against Her, no, not Her. She'd kill you and I'd never get to know how your adventures went. Well, next time, next time. If only you were a full grown bird…"

Again the childish comparisons. Mari snorted and narrowed her eyes. "I can handle a...'witch.' Is she competition or something? It's not the first time I've killed someone." That was a lie. Mari had seen Michelle kill someone in self-defense, only once. Michelle had covered her eyes afterwards and held Mari to her chest until the girl stopped crying and they never spoke of it again.

Still, wasn't seeing death the same as dealing it? She could kill someone to save Grandma. Certainly she could kill a bad person to save a good one.

"No, no." Muse's eye swiveled as if she were shaking her head. "No, wait, I know exactly it! There's something that was taken from me some time ago. I forgot about it, because it wasn't terribly important to me, but it seems like it'd be more fun to have it around. You know how you can lose something and not care, and then weeks later look for it only to remember it's gone? It's like that. I mean, you might die doing this, too. But at least She won't have the satisfaction of killing someone else."

Mari bit her lip to prevent an outburst. She wanted to shout at how Grandma needed help now, not after she went on some quest for a half-mad robot to find something that probably didn't even exist. She didn't even have proof that Muse could fix Grandma, or even that she made Puppets. Maybe she just had one working for her.

"…Quest. Fine, fine, fine. What is it? Where is it? I'll go find it for you. I can sneak into tight places and people won't bother me because they think I'm just a dumb kid."

"It's, it is…let's see, I don't know WHERE it is, but I know who took it. If you find them, you'll probably find it, because they were like magpies hoarding treasures. I doubt they even know why they wanted it…ah, what I wouldn't give for a visual screen! As it is, I can only describe it." Muse moved in close to Mari again, so the girl could hear the faint hum of machinery and the screeching of her joints. "It's a black box adorned with orange and blue, no bigger than a loaf of bread. There are all kinds of buttons, and if you press the wrong one, you disappear forever! Or maybe you go somewhere else. Either way, don't push any buttons. Just find it and bring it here. I bet if you keep going further into these tunnels, you'll find them, those magpies who…"

Muse cut herself short when Cero opened the heavy doors and tapped the edge of the door three times. It must have been some kind of signal, as Muse's pupil contracted in alarm. "Oh, what awful timing! Well, I guess you'll get a preview of what you might be dealing with. Go hide. Go hide! This sort of person shouldn't see you." Muse gestured with her body at a door in the back of the room. "Cero, go hide her! Our guest can find his way in himself."

"Hide? I don't need to hide! I can-ugh! Let go of me!" Mari pulled away from Cero as he clamped a hand over her arm. He he had the vice grip of a Puppet as picked her up with more care than she expected before carrying her off around the corner into the hallway. She prepared to bite down until she realized she might just bite metal, and besides that, she wanted to stay on Muse's good side. If listening to the odd whims of a robot-thing and her cybernetic Igor would keep Grandma alive, Mari would swallow her pride and do it.

She expected Cero to shove her all the way in, but instead he kept the door open just a crack, as if inviting her to watch. He held a spindly gloved finger in front of his wrapped mouth and dimmed his eyes.

Mari wasn't scared, not exactly. The pounding of her heart was adrenaline, leaving her itching to go on her 'quest' now that she had a way to save Michelle, no matter how odd that way might be. As for Cero, before he shut the lights off in his eyes, he looked like a frightened child in a too-big body.

* * *

Cero was not a Puppet. A few of Muse's patients had called him one, but whatever kind of monstrosity he was now, he was nothing like them. They wore their alterations like medals of honor, openly brandishing extra arms or half-faceplates. Most of them weren't even sick or hurt. They just wanted to change their bodies. Why? They had been complete humans once, why would they want to be something in-between like he was?

Then again, those were their bodies. They could do whatever they wanted with them, he supposed, because those had always been their bodies. This thing he occupied wasn't his body and he knew it. His real body was sitting in storage; a burnt-out husk for the most part, its guts carved out and implanted in what was left of this _human_. Making himself look more human was all he could think to do to get himself out of this abyss between bodies.

Sooner or later, he'd have to ask Muse what the term "puppet" meant, after he learned how to communicate again.

The stubborn human kid thankfully didn't wriggle too much as he held her back. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized she was going to listen to Muse's orders and just hang back. It wasn't that he was afraid for her, exactly. He was afraid of her, and that glare like broken glass she was turning on the narrow space between doors. It was too familiar.

He hated things that reminded him of memories lost because they were like itches that couldn't be scratched. Apples were significant, as were potatoes, though how he couldn't even imagine. (He didn't have a stomach in that previous body, after all. What need did he have for fruits or vegetables?) Sometimes he'd look at a certain shade of orange and find himself overcome with loneliness. The associations made no sense, as if his own damaged memory files were taunting him. Maybe they were, the little traitors. Served them right being damaged or deleted if they were going to be such little tricksters.

That gaze in Mari's eyes, though. It wasn't the eyes themselves, or their dark brown-black color. None of that was significant at all. The expression was what did it. He'd never seen that expression on anyone before, not even in the most arrogant and defiant patients, and yet it felt horribly familiar. It brought to mind a wave of guilt like nausea; guilt and paranoia that he'd be held responsible for something he didn't remember doing. Would he have done it? He couldn't have done anything to this girl, could he? Muse didn't recognize her, unless the two of them were in on some game made to play with his mind. He wouldn't put it past Muse, really, except that it seemed like a lot of effort just to pull one over on him.

To try to fight off the shivers of guilt, he turned his attention towards the laboratory, peeking through the doorway. As expected, he heard the step-clang-step-clang of the visitor, who greeted Muse with an off-kilter bow. He wore a long coat and the parts of his skin visible were bone-pale. His movements suggested he'd been consuming alcohol. ("Stay away from that stuff," Muse had warned Cero. "It will interfere with your medications and your sense of creativity.")

"I come," the man said, "on behalf of a friend. But you know that, don't you, fair lady?"

Muse tilted her optic. "What are you doing here at this time, Hooper? You don't have an appointment. That's very rude. Well, what is it you want? I told you, I can't give you more alterations for another week. You'll bleed too much as you are now. And you've been drinking."

Hooper had implant-eyes like Cero's, though the other man's weren't still rimmed with bruises, much to Cero's jealousy. They glowed a faint yellow, a shade off from Cosmo's optic. "Not for me! He wants to know if you have any parts. You know. Have anything to trade."

Cero felt Mari tense and let go of her reflexively, though thankfully she stayed put. He couldn't imagine what was making her so angry, but her light brown skin was turning a shade of furious dark red in the dim light. That stare was back, so cold and accusing he couldn't bear to look at it even when it came from a child and even when it wasn't directed at him.

Muse tapped her little arms together, oblivious to Mari's awful stares. "Not much today, I'm afraid. Do you need kidneys? I suspect you'll need a liver if you keep drinking like that."

"Are you moralizing at me, my lady?"

"Of course not! Morals are a social construct, or something, somesuch. I'm just saying." Muse rolled her optic. "That said, if you have a special request, you're welcome to pass it on to me. I'm sure sooner or later someone will decide they want something replaced, and what am I going to do with it?"

Cero's hand inadvertently went to his chest, where the bubbling tubes and vents took the place of lungs. If Muse had 'spare parts,' why hadn't she given this human regular lungs instead of things that hurt whenever he breathed in?

Hooper just chuckled. "I think you are hiding something, my lady. I think you are hiding something and we are going to find it, and we are going to find something to trade it for. Something you cannot go without. But if you insist I keep playing your game, so be it." He spun around and wandered out in that strange, drunken gait.

The moment the door slammed shut, Mari broke free of Cero's grip and ran back into the room. He stared, mortified, as she glared right up at a startled Muse.

"You're an organ trafficker. You're stealing 'parts!"

Muse's optic shrank again, and her voice sounded flustered. "No, no! No, you misunderstand. You misunderstood that entire exchange. I don't TAKE things from people that they NEED. Not unless they offer it, or they're too dead to do too much with it."

"That's disgusting."

The sideways eyelid narrowed. "You can call it that if you want. You know, all that about personal morality and everything. If I have spare human parts laying around, and they have machine parts I need to keep functioning, we make a trade. I have to do it to keep myself alive, and they do it because…oh, who cares? I doubt they eat them. Obviously you feel moral enough to judge me for this, but if I shut down and die, who else can save your grandmother?"

Mari fell quiet, though the glare didn't subside. Oh, it was awful! It made him want to curl up in a corner and hide in the closet, and he hadn't even done anything.

"Are you going to turn away from me and leave? You can, you know. There's no contract or anything. You can walk away from this whenever you like. Cero will show you the way out and from there you just follow the tunnels until they lead you up or down, depending on where you want to go. Up takes you home, and down leads you to where the thieves likely live, if I'm correct. Eventually, anyway. It's funny, the subway tunnels beneath this city, they're very…long and complicated…well, anyway. Leave if you want. I won't mind. Frankly I don't like the presence of children. You're so mercurial, you unnerve me…"

Cero figured that Mari would do just that, but the girl stayed put, finally looking down.

"Oh, but you're willing to work with 'morally compromised' people for the sake of love!" Muse's sugary tone returned, without a drop of irony. "I should have expected no less. Well, it's getting late anyway, and neither one of you wants to be out at night, of course. Cero, lead the girl to the exit. Little bird, if you do want to work with me, show up tomorrow morning and find my friend again. He'll accompany you down to the tunnels."

Wait. What?

Perhaps Cero's stunned expression was obvious, or maybe Muse caught on to Cero shaking his head, crossing his arms, and desperately trying to signal his displeasure in every way possible. She just laughed. "Of course she needs a guide! It'll be good for you, experiencing something dangerous, Cero."

Cero's stomach turned and he gave a desperate look to Mari. Maybe the brave, terrible girl would develop a sense of compassion and insist she could go by herself?

Instead, Mari hesitated before squeezing one of his metal fingers, looking up at him. She wasn't glaring at least, even if she wasn't smiling. "It's alright. We can do this. There's nothing to be scared of." Her voice sounded hollow, but there was a different look in her eyes, one he couldn't place.

How selfish and cruel of her, insisting he accompany her! The resentment already blooming in him brought about another unfamiliar twitch. He smothered it so as not to encounter another unscratchable itch.

Still, how terribly selfish.

_"You know what you are? Selfish. I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here."_

Oh, there was another one of those internal audio files. Of course he was the only one who could hear it, as he didn't exactly have speakers. He didn't expect it to start playing on its own, though. Maybe the mixed emotions were messing with his memory files. Maybe those pesky files were being mischievous again. What good did it do him? A sentence like that only meant that he'd been used as a selfless martyr before, which was not at all a surprise.

Mari said very little as he escorted her back to the entrance, which hardly helped endear her to him. When others didn't talk, he felt the need to fill the silence, which left him thinking of things he would say if he could. _What were you doing there, yelling at Muse? She's batty, you could tell that! You really shouldn't have anything to do with this place, but got to save your old Gran, I guess? What, did she lose her false teeth? Needs metal ones, now? Let me tell you, it's quite a mess you've gotten me into, kid. Also, if you could perhaps never turn that weird glare on again, I'd really appreciate that. It's dangerous! You shouldn't just point that at people. _Sure enough, she'd never glared at him that way. Thank goodness for small miracles. No wonder Muse disliked children; they were little monsters, cruel enough to shut up at just the wrong moment.

Mari paused at the entrance, holding a hand up to shield her eyes from the reddish-orange glare of the setting sun. "I'll be there tomorrow, okay? It'll be fine. We'll fetch her thing and I'll fix Grandma and you'll never have to see me again. I can tell you don't like me."

Cero stiffened and waved his arms in front of him in denial. _What? Dislike? Oh, not at all, please! We just had a bad first impression. Please don't think poorly of me, I can't stand it when people do that…_

"No, it's fine. Just promise when you meet Grandma, you'll be nice to her. You won't make her mad. Okay? If you make her mad, I don't care if you're a Puppet or not…"

Seeing even the faintest sign of That Glare on Mari's features, Cero nodded in frightened panic. Mari's mouth quirked up, almost as if something was funny, but she turned away before she would explain anything else.

Was she laughing at him?

"You always look so scared. I don't know what's frightening to someone like you. Muse is a robot, right? She'll never…" Mari bit her thumb and looked back at Cero once more. "Bye. See you tomorrow…"

She ran off, probably to avoid the things that came out at night. It was the same reason why Cero started bolting for the tunnels the moment he realized how low the sun was. Long bloody days of summer indeed! He had no idea what exactly came out at night, but if Muse wanted nothing to do with it, Cero certainly didn't.

As he dashed inside the clinic and bolted the door, something inside of his mind flashed. No, it was more like a switch had been turned on, and he realized if he wanted to, he could backtrack through that audio file which had played itself earlier. Maybe that way, he could reconstruct what exactly was going on.

_"Well, maybe it's time I did something, then."_ That was useless. It meant he did something, apparently. Though he did wonder why exactly he sounded so angry and cold. Perhaps someone had turned on him? He rewound a bit further.

_"I did this! Tiny little Wheatley did this."_

Wheatley. Wheatley? Was that his name? It had to be, didn't it? If it had just been 'Tiny little Wheatley did this,' that would have been of no help, but he was referring to himself. Yes. Wheatley felt right. Wheatley.

Cero meant zero. Wheatley meant…something about wheat? Odd. Was he involved in industrial farming, maybe? Was that why all the non-memories surrounding apples and potatoes?

"Oh, my little doll, your eyes lit up like stars!" Muse hovered above Cero, blinking. "Did something happen? Did you get a memory back perhaps, or figure something out?"

Cero nodded eagerly. Wheatley. Yes, Wheatley! He was Wheatley, not Cero. He'd tell her to call him that now, it was only right.

He opened his mouth, and nothing came out. Oh, right.

"Well, that's good! You were so brave today, for such a little coward, I might have a reward for you later. Go to your room and wait for dinner now, and make sure to take all your medications. Goodnight, Cero."

Cero. He was Cero, until he could tell anyone otherwise. His real name was a secret he didn't want to keep.

When he fixed his mind and his voice, he'd delete the name 'Cero' right from his databanks, and that would be that.

* * *

P-body was Peabody now. She didn't quite understand the difference, but God told her it was important, and she wouldn't question God's wisdom.

The new body would take some getting used to, in part because it felt so impractical. The fingers were too tiny, the arms too spindly and the legs didn't even have built-in long fall capabilities. She had to remind herself that the sturdy-built man standing next to her was Atlas, her Atlas, wearing a different kind of skin at God's request. He was just as handsome in a different way, but he didn't look like her Atlas. At least his movements were still Atlas's, the way he stomped his foot in impatience, or walked just a step ahead of her with a cocky grin. She knew enough about human faces to at least recognize expressions when she saw them.

There were other differences between their bodies. God had told Peabody that her body was shaped like something called "female," and Atlas was "male," whatever that meant. _("It has to do with how you call him a 'he,'" _God had explained, though that had been of no help at all.) Peabody had long, thick black hair, and Atlas's was cut shorter, with some of it on his face.

They stood at the entrance to Aperture where, as God had promised, they'd found a jeep. Of course, they'd had to dispose of the jeep's driver, but God had insisted She knew what to do with such humans. Thanks to God's programming, Peabody knew how to drive as naturally as she understood the Dual Portal Device, which was stashed in the jeep's trunk.

_It shouldn't be too far from here. If my indications are correct, it's just a few hours' drive. I'd floor it if I were you, if you want to get there before midnight. Oh, and you do want to get there before midnight, if you don't want to be stuck in those bodies for a month doing nothing. I'm certainly not letting you back in while you look like humans._

Whatever Peabody thought of this body, there was something reassuring and comforting about hearing the voice of God in her mind, thanks to a built-in wireless connection. God would be able to contact them wherever they went. She would see what they would see, and tell them what to do. If they disobeyed, God would blow them up. It was a brand new kind of test, and more importantly, it meant that God really did trust Atlas and Peabody.

How merciful She was, and loving!

_Don't be surprised if you get some stares, _God added. _The Aperture Science Human Likeness Androids are designed to look slightly better than humans are supposed to look, in part because no matter what I think of you, you're still superior to all of humanity by virtue of not being human. So I made you look better than human. It's called the Uncanny Valley effect, in which humans feel discomfort at seeing something not quite human because they are hilariously stupid. _

_Now, hurry up and drive. Aperture tech has a common signature, so you'll know when you're getting close. Get in there, take back what is MINE and bring it back to me. There should only be two things, though you know what to do if you find any more._

Penelope smiled at Atlas, which is what happened when she moved her face while she was happy, and gave him a playful hug. He grunted and rubbed the back of his neck, nudging her on while she drove towards the sunset.

_Believe me, _GLaDOS said, _the city's really hard to miss. _


End file.
